Early Breakfast withWasanga Mehana

University of Cape Town chemical engineer Prof Cyril O’Connor and several other senior scientists have warned that skilled inspectors are needed to monitor and police the emerging shale gas fracking industry.

The group convened on Thursday at the start of a two-day conference to interrogate the potential impact of shale gas drilling on a massive chunk of land covering almost 172 000km2 of the Karoo.

O'Connor spoke to Mike Wills, standing in for John Maytham, about the issue.

If its properly regulated, if we do not have honest, competent regulators to monitor that the operators are compliant with international best practice then we are going to have problems.

— Prof Cyril O’Connor, chemical engineer

If it is properly done, there is ample evidence from all over the world that it is a safe process that can yield significant benefits to the country.

— Prof Cyril O’Connor, chemical engineer

it is going to be a long haul before the first fracking takes place, we will guess it is going to be 10 years....